D&D General If not death, then what?

[Lanefan]

Did you seriously just try and say that only death is permanent because you can restore a kingdom via time travel?

Would it shock you to learn that time travel can ALSO reverse a dead character's fate? Because, you know, TIME TRAVEL!!

Or a wish.

Yeah, I don't put much stock in the idea that my players don't care about the world. If I've done such a poor job world-building that no one cares about anything except gold and glory, I'd need to start a new campaign. Because gold and glory are both absolutely worthless.

Nah - gold and glory are all there is to live for!

Without those, why are we doing this?

 

[Lanefan]

It is a complicated issue. I think DMs bear a great deal of responsibility for fostering and supporting player engagement/enthusiasm. This is why I am such a huge advocate of "say yes" and the like. (I actually have a thread-discussion essay on the topic about half finished!)

Maybe a better way to say it is: while players are responsible for having enthusiasm to begin with, DMs are responsible for nurturing and encouraging that enthusiasm. Unwise DM actions can strangle enthusiasm before it leaves the cradle. That much, I think, is unequivocal.

Other than the "say yes" bit, I quite agree with this.

Sometimes, though, nurturing and encouraging that enthusiasm is best done with a little tough love, to separate the wheat from the chaff.

An example seen with my own eyes was when I once sat in on a low-level 3e (or PF?) game where the DM and most of the players were pretty new to it all. That session the party almost got TPKed through a combination of unwise play, bad luck, and the DM overestimating what they could handle; and from how the various players reacted I could immediately tell which of those players were long-term keepers and which weren't.

The keepers were those who took the attitude of "Dammit! Gimme those dice! I'm rolling up a new character and we're gonna get it right this time!"

The non-keepers just sat there and pouted.

 

[Lanefan]

As far as I'm concerned, it does. If you don't care about the world then I see no point in running the game. Someone else can run something. I put in too much effort, alongside my players, to build a world worth caring about. If that is not the case, all that effort is wasted and I cannot in good conscience attempt to run a game for folks who could not care less about the world they play in. It would be worse than trying to run a game for villain PCs; at least with villains, I would still be offering them things they care about, it just wouldn't be a good product because I would be unenthusiastic about crafting it. With truly apathetic players, literally nothing I am interested in doing would be valuable to them. We may as well pull the plug, because the campaign died long ago and the husk it left behind cannot be saved.

While I completely get your point, there's a significant subset (as in, a whole lot!) of players out there who don't care about much other than being able to show up every Sunday night, knock back a beer or a Coke, have a laugh at whatever antics their characters get up to in the moment, and chuck some dice when the shootin' starts.

With players like these (and I can be one myself, sometimes) it's ultimately the DM who gets far more out of the setting and worldbuilding than do the players, other than a firm foundation on which that game can rest; while from the DM side I realize this can be the case and go through the motions notwithstanding.

 

[Micah Sweet]

While I completely get your point, there's a significant subset (as in, a whole lot!) of players out there who don't care about much other than being able to show up every Sunday night, knock back a beer or a Coke, have a laugh at whatever antics their characters get up to in the moment, and chuck some dice when the shootin' starts.

With players like these (and I can be one myself, sometimes) it's ultimately the DM who gets far more out of the setting and worldbuilding than do the players, other than a firm foundation on which that game can rest; while from the DM side I realize this can be the case and go through the motions notwithstanding.

This. God knows I've been there, on either side.

 

[Lanefan]

Already discussed this. Kill the specter, revivify the target.

Does 5e have any rule saying that if a corpse becomes undead (via any means) it can no longer be revived to life?

I know as a player I would simply assume such a rule exists and be surprised if it doesn't, as undeath so badly corrupts both soul and body.

 

[Medic]

Does 5e have any rule saying that if a corpse becomes undead (via any means) it can no longer be revived to life?

I know as a player I would simply assume such a rule exists and be surprised if it doesn't, as undeath so badly corrupts both soul and body.

No, but the DM can still soft-veto resurrection magic without actually meddling with the rules. As an example, the lowest-level spell of the bunch, Revivify, specifically requires diamonds worth 300 GP or a scroll, which casting the spell consumes, and the price for better resurrections increases exponentially. People in this thread have talked about persuading Myrkul to give my soul back like it's the same as getting groceries, but getting those rare components can be a matter of "DM can I have?" To which some may simply answer "Nah."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Simpler, isn't it, to just leave death on the table as a possibility and have done with it?

Nope. Because then my players would not take risks. Ever.

Also, great job spinning, "Please don't ruthlessly exploit my generosity" as me being some tyrannical person preventing you from playing intelligently, and somehow not you choosing to actively defy the spirit of the game as I have shared it with you.

Genuinely impressive, the transmutation from "doing a thing you know is rude and uncool that you were asked not to do" to "just playing smart."

 

[Chaosmancer]

And again I ask you. Is it possible? Is it possible? Your only answer is Yes, under the normal rules.
And to avoid these fate, you have to use time travel, wishes and many shenanigans.
You assume that characters win every fight and never flee. Nothing can be further from the truth.

And you used Time Travel as an excuse for why losing a Kingdom is nothing more than a mild inconvenience. So, if I must accept that a kingdom destroyed by the forces of evil is nothing more than a mild inconvience due to time travel being possible, why is death suddenly so permanent and forever if I can use "many shenangins" including basic spells everyone is aware of and will prepare to combat death?

You present a double standard, then act like being called on it is some grave sin.

Character will flee and regroup. Sometimes, it means that the dead character is left behind. Leaving time to either being raised into an undead or simply rise as one. You can be swallowed, be still in the area of a fireball cast by friendly or unfriendly fire as you died. How many HP does a corpse have. A medium barrel has about 18 hp. A fireball will destroy it as it will destroy the corpse of your friend. That is unless you rule that dead character are totally immune to all damage. And that is assuming simple normal play. Once again, not every fight can be won. The dragon will not stop to use its breath because the corpse of a character happens to be there. Heck, that fire can melt armor! Imagine a single corpse. Or being swallowed, the purple worm isn't the only creature to swallow hole. There are some frogs that can do that too.

Faced with overwhelming odds, characters will flee, leaving their dead friend there. Unless that in your games, characters are so powerful that they never have to flee... It would explain a lot of things and positions you have.

PCs rarely flee and leave the dead corpse of their friends behind... Because they want to raise their dead friend and prevent them from staying dead. They have gone to incredible lengths to grab that body or at least a piece of it,

Very few enemies swallow dead corpses.

Also, as for how much health a corpse has... this is something that is never covered in the game. There are zero rules for damaging corpses. It is equally RAW that since you can't die due to death from massive damage until you have taken your negative hp in damage then the corpse can't be destroyed until it takes the negative hp as damage. Which is far more than 18.

And, yea, I generally don't bother tracking damage done to corpses if they were caught in an AOE. I also don't rule that fireball destroys stone floors (10x10 object, resilient, 27 hp) if they roll 30 damage. It is questionable if fire damage could even prevent revify from working, because they aren't missing any limbs and they didn't die of old age, which are the only restrictions per RAW.

Also
Once undead, your creature type is now undead. Be you a corpse, you will be revivified as what you were previously, an undead. Why do you think that such spells as raise dead specify it can not target undead type? Heck, to remove that fate, you need True Resurection. The only spell that specifies it!

Um... because you can't use Raise Dead to bring back an actively undead zombie, or a Revenant, or a Death Knight, or reverse Lichdom. There is literally nothing that says the corpse of a zombie is still a zombie and not just a corpse. Again, you seem very intent on these houserules for someone who is so adamant that you are the only one following RAW.

In fact, there is a line in Curse of Strahd about killing a Vampire in the church and raising them back as a human. No True Resurrection required

Also, you said: You've also accused me of picking on your "weak" examples, when... I've addressed all your examples? Seems like a rather strange claim that I only picked on the ones easy to disprove, which was all the ones you pointed out."
Of course I will admit that my examples were weak. Not doing it would be disingenuous and flattly be bad faith. And I told you why: "I was not near my books". But the spirit of these examples are still relevant. Keep in mind that I do not fear being proven wrong when I am wrong. But this time, I am not. Death is truly the only thing that can be permanent. All the rest are just setbacks that will spring more adventures. These setbacks might be hard to swallow and accept. But they can be overcome. What does not kill you, makes you stronger has never been truer than in fantasy.

And as I've now shown repeatedly, Death too is merely a setback and not permanent. Since your definition of "permanent" involves "can't be undone via time travel". So, nothing in DnD is permanent.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And with this, I agree.

It's when it happens every time, and-or when my character can't die no matter what I do, that it jumps the shark.

Sure, but like everyone else has been saying, if you are actively trying to suicide your character out of some sense of obligation to push the envelope, I'm more than happy to kill that character. Mostly because you constantly trying to commit suicide is disruptive to everyone else's enjoyment of the game.

Most players aren't actively trying to die, so it doesn't become an issue for them.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Does 5e have any rule saying that if a corpse becomes undead (via any means) it can no longer be revived to life?

I know as a player I would simply assume such a rule exists and be surprised if it doesn't, as undeath so badly corrupts both soul and body.

Undeath doesn't do anything to the body or the soul via the rules of 5e. And there is no rule stating that you can't bring a corpse back from the dead after it has been used as a zombie. The only thing you can't do is target a zombie, and bring it back as a person.